Vanilla With Extra Nuts (2 page)

started to read.

Dear Megan,

I don’t know whether this is wise, but I am missing you so

much I wanted to at least try. I am so sorry I wasn’t upfront

about myself from the beginning. I should have been. I was

having such a good time with you I just sort of forgot

everything else.

I wish there was something I could do to make this all

better, Simon does too. He likes you, as well you know. He’s

seen your photos and thinks your curves are deliciously sexy.

He’s upset that I’m upset and livid that I managed to upset you.

Victoria Blisse

I want to make it all better, I do. Can we get together to

talk? I’m off to Happy Mart 3 all week this week, but if you can

get to the store I’ll talk to you there.

Miss you so much,

Adam.

I was angry when I first read it. The tears I’d tried so hard

to hide fell unbidden as the rage bubbled up inside of me. How

could he be so arrogant? Just because he likes boys and girls

doesn’t mean he should be able to ignore the rules. People are

monogamous. When you’re with one person, you’re not

fucking anyone else. That’s the rules.

But there was no doubting that I missed him. We’d only

been together a few months but we’d hit it off immediately,

and we went from casual date and shag to something far more

like a relationship in just a matter of days. Well, I thought we

had. Obviously Adam didn’t see it that way. It might have been

an ego stroke to know that another man found me attractive.

I’m bigger than the skinny bitches on TV and not so many men

admire my full and womanly curves. So when one does, I feel

all the more flattered for it. But as much as my ego was

flattered, the rest of me was just plain pissed off.

And missed him. It didn’t matter how much I focused on

how mad I was, it all came back down to that. I missed him and

that is why I found myself on a train at four on a Friday

afternoon. I had to see him, even if it would prove to just be

closure. I couldn’t bear another week of wondering what if and

pining for him. I needed to hear Adam’s excuses face to face to

make up my mind properly and to either change the nature of

our relationship or end it for good.

I was ratty when I walked into Happy Mart 3. It had been

a horrible journey. The train had been packed tight with people.

There had been delays and an overly amorous couple snogging

in a corner. It made me feel sick to the stomach looking at such

a happy couple in love. It was cold, wet, and miserable. The

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hotel I’d checked into didn’t brighten my mood. It was cheap

and nasty but all I could find at short notice.

I stood at the customer service desk and scowled until a

handsome guy walked over and asked in a deep, buttered tone

if he could help me.

“I need to speak to Adam Whittaker, is he here?”

“Yes, he is. Somewhere. Hold on one minute, miss, I will

call him.”

He walked over to the intercom. I tried really hard not to

watch how his buttocks moved so smoothly under his black

trousers as he walked away from me and pretended to barely

notice how his wide shoulders made the white shirt hang so

beautifully over his thick, muscled back. I really didn’t peer at

his back to see if his shirt was a little see-through, honestly I

didn’t. I just noticed it accidentally.

“Adam Whittaker to customer service, please. Customer

waiting. Thank you.”

“There you are, miss. He’ll be here any moment. Now, if

that’s all I can help you with, I must get back to the shelves.”

“Yes, thank you, you’ve been most helpful.” I smiled, my

cheeks flushed. He’d been great fantasy fodder too, but I

wasn’t about to tell him that.

“Oh, it’s been my pleasure.” He winked and I giggled like

a little schoolgirl as he walked away. I took a deep, steadying

breath and tried to get back to being serious instead of

seriously horny.

“Megan?” Adam’s voice made my heart leap, then plunge

to the pit of my stomach, “are you all right?”

“We need to talk, when do you finish?”

“Erm, not long now. Let me just sort out a few things and

we can go somewhere. Come on up and sit in my office while

you wait. I shouldn’t be long.”

I followed him silently. I had a lot I wanted to say and a

lot I wanted to do, like run my fingers through his blond hair

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and kiss his plump lips. That was not what I was there for,

though. I had to remember that. This was going to be a closure

not a reunion, if things went to plan. Part of me hoped that

things wouldn’t go to plan, but that was the part of me that was

still imaging how the guy at customer service’s naked butt

would look.

“Here you go, Megan, make yourself as comfortable as

you can. I shouldn’t be long. I just have to tie up a few loose

ends, you know.”

“Okay.” I sat down on a standard plastic chair. “I can

wait.”

“It’s good to see you, Megan, I’m glad you came.” As I

really looked at Adam’s face, I noticed the dark bags beneath

his eyes and the drawn look to his skin. He hadn’t had a good

week either.

“Don’t get your hopes up,” I said. “I’m just here to get

some answers. That’s all.”

He nodded solemnly and walked out of the room. I felt

bad, as if I were kicking a skinny mongrel in its painfully

visible ribs, but what could I do? I couldn’t leave him believing

I was there to get back together with him as I was fairly certain

that wasn’t the case. Well, the sensible part of me was a

hundred percent sure. The more instinctive part of me, the one

that wanted the customer service guy and had flashed

memories of sex romps with Adam through my mind as I

followed him upstairs, was busy trying to convince me I

needed to get laid. As much as I wanted to let that part have its

way, sensible me was lecturing me on why that wouldn’t be a

good idea.

Adam came back into the office far quicker than I

expected.

“Right, I’m done. Where do we want to do this?”

“Oh, I thought you’d be longer than this. Erm, I’d like a

bit of privacy, really.”

“Well, my office is pretty private,”

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“Yes, but it’s not exactly comfortable, is it? I don’t want

to feel like one of your employees getting the sack.”

“All right then, we can go back to my hotel then, if you’d

like.”

“As long as you know I’m only here to talk.”

“Yes,” Adam interrupted, “I know that.”

“Well then, your room sounds good.”

“Okay, come on, before someone collars me to sort out

yet another problem.” He said it with a sigh that pulled at my

heart strings. He was having a bad time of it all round. I had to

harden those strings though. If I started doing things just

because I felt sorry for him, I would be in trouble.

“How was your journey?” he asked as we walked out of

the warm supermarket into the cold air of a chilly autumnal

evening.

“I got here in one piece and that’s about all you need to

know about that,” I replied.

“Yeah, Friday rush hour journeys can be brutal. How’s

school?”

“Same old,” I said. “The classes seem to be settling in

well, I’ve gotten a handle on who the troublemakers are now

and who are the ones who need extra help. I’m getting there,

slowly but surely.”

“You’re an awesome teacher.” Adam rested his hand

momentarily on my upper arm. “I’m sure all those kids realize

that.”

I walked away from his contact, the weight of his hand

felt too good and I didn’t want him to realize what power his

touch had over me. Just that brief brush was enough to make

my knees wobble and my heart pound in my chest.

“Have you got a manager for this place yet?” I asked, as

genial banter was better than heavy, dense silence.

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Victoria Blisse

“Not quite.” He ran his fingers through his hair, “I’ve held

interviews this past week and now I’m re-interviewing a few

that I short listed. I should be done sometime next week.”

“Oh, that’s good,” I said, unable to think of anything more

inspired. Luckily at that point he led me into the foyer of an

upmarket chain hotel and the conversation came to a close. We

didn’t have far to go, his room was only one flight of stairs up.

I was glad I’d not suggested going to my hotel room. It was

embarrassing in comparison to the minimalistic grandeur of

this place.

“I miss you,” Adam sighed as he shut the door behind

him. So, we weren’t going to waste any more time on polite

conversation.

“Adam, don’t make this any harder than it already is. You

know I miss you, why would I be here otherwise?”

“But you said you weren’t here for that. That I shouldn’t

get my hopes up.” He crossed the room and perched on the

corner of a large double bed. I stayed on my feet close to the

door just in case I did need to make a swift exit. I also didn’t

trust myself to get any closer to him.

“No, I’m not. You hurt me, Adam, but I’ve not been able

to get you out of my mind. I need to get some things straight

before I can let this go.”

“I don’t want you to let it go,” he replied. “I never wanted

to hurt you; I never meant to keep anything secret. I was a fool.

I’ve been so low this past week all I want is to feel your body

next to mine, to press my lips to yours and recapture what we

had.”

“Don’t lie,” I interrupted, “that’s not all you want at all.

You want cock too. You were two-timing me, Adam, all along.

I know we’d not been going out long and I know that we

weren’t that serious but, heavens above man, I thought we were

more than just fuck partners.”

“We were,” he said, “and I should have explained myself

from the start, but I was scared. So many women see me as a

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freak for what I am. Many of them believe I’m actually gay

and in denial, others think I’m just insane. The point is I kept

the info to myself because I didn’t want to lose you, which was

stupid, I know. But, Megan, I never meant to hurt you.”

“Well, you did, a lot,” I snapped back and walked a few

steps parallel to the wall, the built-up frustration inside me

needing some kind of release. “I am not bothered about you

fancying blokes as well as women. That’s by the by. It’s not an

issue for me. The issue is that you were fucking someone else

whilst you were fucking me. I’d be as pissed off if it was a girl

you’d been sleeping with. I thought we had something special,

Adam, I really did. Then it became apparent that you were just

looking for someone to make up a threesome.”

“No, no, nothing like that,” he sighed and pulled at the

knot on his tie, loosening it, “I just kind of panicked and said

something I thought might have appeased you. I was wrong. I

mean, Simon does think you’re attractive, even more so now

that he’s met you, but the threesome thing was just me being

light-hearted really, trying to make it better. It didn’t work.”

“Hang on, when did I meet this Simon?” I asked,

completely bemused and still marching back and forward by

the door.

“Just now at Happy Mart, at the customer service desk.”

“That was Simon?” My mind boggled. The hot young

man I couldn’t help admiring was Adam’s fuck buddy. Oh boy.

“Yeah, that was Simon. He didn’t mention anything, but

he knew it was you the moment you walked in.”

I shook my head as an image of Simon and Adam locked

in a naked embrace lodged itself in my brain. “That’s not

important The issue here isn’t how good looking Simon is; it’s

how you cheated on me.”

“He is gorgeous.” Adam smiled wistfully. “I didn’t mean

to cheat on you. I mean, I didn’t see it like that. Simon and I

have been, well, intimate for a year or so now. We’re not

boyfriends, neither of us really want that kind of commitment,

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but we are in some kind of casual relationship. So when I met

you, I didn’t even think about Simon. We go off, we do our

own thing. So when I was romancing you that was all I was